


Comfort Food

by Not_You



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Cooking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Food, Gen, Multi, Team Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 times Clint cooked for one of his teammates and the 1 time they cooked for him.</p><p>+ 1000 for lots of kisses between Clint and whoever he's cooking for<br/>+ 100000 for diversity. (ex: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, etc.)</p><p>Oh, and obviously Clint is a BAMF at cooking.</p><p>(Alas, no kisses.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfort Food

5\. Tony really doesn't like not knowing things, but on the other hand when he doesn't know things that turn out to be awesome or hot or adorable it's a pleasant surprise to find out. So he's kinda torn, standing here in the kitchen doorway unsure if it's five am or pm, watching Clint get his June Cleaver on. He's stirring something in one of the big pots, the smell of simmering beef stock and god knows what else filling the kitchen. The one thing Tony does know is that this is no simple boiling of dried noodles to throw jarred sauce over them to fuel more work. The cutting board is in the sink, covered in a really alarmingly red residue, and there's an open bottle of red wine and some onion skins and beet tops on the counter. Natasha is having a small glass, a bandage wrapped around one arm. She and Clint both look freshly showered, and Tony knows they must be freshly returned. They have that weird hard-yet-vulnerable look they always do, and he feels that old bizarre and embarrassing urge to hug them.

"Hey."

"Hey," Clint murmurs, not looking up. "Hope you don't mind."

"Hell, no." He wanders in and starts coffee. He may just be in boxers and an undershirt, but fuck 'em, it's his house. "What're you making? What time is it, anyway?"

"It is five o'clock ante-meridian, sir."

"Thanks, JARVIS. What're you making, Katniss?"

"Borscht, Peeta. Nat wanted something warming and you had all the stuff for it."

"I don't even know why, I fucking hate beets."

 

4\. When they get back from that really scary fucking alternate dimension where they're all goddamn serial killers, no one is really at their best. Natasha fucking cries and Steve can't stop laughing, which is somehow even worse. There's kind of a confused second there where Bruce almost Hulks out and Clint bitchslaps Steve (who thanks him for it and that's kinda hot) and Thor hugs Natasha and that's kinda hot too and then they all split up to bathe and try and get their heads together. It's the homey smell of bacon that pulls him and everyone else out of their caves again to find Clint in the kitchen, in a goddamn apron.

"...Clint?" Bruce cocks his head, surprised but taking in this new information with a scientist's aplomb.

"A wise man once said that breakfast can serve as an anchor in an otherwise stressful and toxic life. Does anyone here not like omelets?"

As far as Tony's concerned, Clint being a Hunter S. Thompson fan is way weirder than Clint cooking. Everyone else just settles around the island or at some of the disused counter space to watch. No one objects to omelets. They sit there and let Clint's dexterous hands create them out of nothing and flip six of the fucking things perfectly. Each one is light and fluffy, and there's even a choice of fillings. The bacon turns out to have been in the oven, the metric ton required all evenly cooked and done at the same time, along with two cookie sheets' worth of toast. Thor tells Clint wide-eyed that he's a genius, and Clint just laughs, ducking his head in real and disarming shyness.

 

3\. The third time, Tony follows his nose down to the kitchen at about nine pm. "What is it this time?"

"Oatmeal cookies. Your boyfriend wants some."

"We are not boyfriends."

"Only 'cause of Pepper."

"God, you're merciless."

"And have good aim."

"A touch, I do confess. Do you make the puffy kind with raisins or the gooey kind with walnuts?"

"Personally, intermediate texture with raisins, but Bruce wants them softer. Some kinda nostalgia thing." He scrapes the batter into a neat ball, covering it and tucking it into the fridge. "Thank Pepper for keeping parchment paper in stock, by the way."

"Will do. ...How many are you making?"

Clint smiles. "Enough."

 

2\. It doesn't matter that Tony's father never seemed to give a shit about him until a goddamn posthumous video, the anniversary of his death is never a good day. It's right up there with Yinsen's, which is also never a good day. He used to just drink his way through both of them, but these days he spends too much time around Bruce, who has such a sharp nose and who hates the smell of booze in such a personal and heartbreaking way. The quantities it takes would be cruel and unusual and might even bring out the Hulk. Not that he scares Tony, but the lab is full of delicate stuff. Point is, he's sober and he'd rather not be and he's actually been doing like, his job and shit and hasn't had time for lunch since half-past one when he started to want it, to now, which is at least a couple minutes after four. He feels quite sorry for himself, thank you.

"Hey, Tony?" Clint's soft voice comes out of nowhere, of course.

He jumps. Fucking SHIELD ninjas. "Yeah?"

"You hungry?"

"...So fucking hungry, you have no idea."

And because Clint is an angel in human form, he has made macaroni and cheese. The good kind, made with real cream and baked in the oven with some asiago and Parmesan to give it dimension. There's also some steamed broccoli as a consolation to his arteries, and homemade brownies because Pepper and Fury were craving some anyway. Tony devours some of everything, and begins to recall that life is worth living.

 

1\. "If you'd rather we don't pay any attention to you, it can be a Fourth of July cake instead." Clint looks amused, carefully stacking three layers of fluffy white cake with creamy raspberry frosting between them while Steve stammers and blushes.

"Give it up, Cap." Tony grins and moves past them to get more coffee. "And happy birthday, by the way. You're what, 23 and 90 today?"

"Yeah. It's like dog years, isn't it?" And he looks kind of lost, and as young as he really is.

"Yeah. Coffee?" And why the fuck does he keep wanting to hug people? He doesn't hug people. That's fucked up.

"Please."

And because there's coffee, Thor pops out of the woodwork. He's thrilled that the anniversary of their nation's independence and Steve's birth fall on the same day, and happy as a little kid to mix some cream cheese frosting and to color it blue as the others come slinking in, drawn by the promise of sugar. Clint carefully frosts and cuts the cake, and it says something about how much better they know each other now that no one is surprised that Clint looked up an old recipe and used organic eggs and actual cake flour and everything.

 

+1. Clint doesn't like undercover work. It fucks with his head and makes him feel cold and lonely. It's always hard to shake off that other identity, clinging like oil. Besides that, he's physically battered and exhausted. No individual wound is worse than a bad bruise, so he can't even feel really sorry for himself, or get fucked up on morphine. He staggers into the tower, wondering how he can feed himself for as little effort as possible, when he realizes that someone is already cooking. Several someones, in fact. The entire team is in the kitchen, Steve assembling a meatloaf as Tony peels potatoes and Thor and Natasha put together an apple pie and Bruce chops greens.

"...What are you doing?"

"Making you dinner 'cause we missed you and figured you'd be hungry," Steve says, resolutely not looking up.

"...Oh." He sits down at the kitchen table, yawning. "Okay."

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